CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 217 



only at this point, but also on the table-land, all about the 

 spring, and differing rather strikingly from the rankest Cali- 

 fornia specimens in its much greater size. Its leaves, in 

 Guadalupe, are an inch broad, and its scape not seldom 

 more than three feet high. 



Our abode, for the week of our sojourn, was taken up in 

 one of the palm-thatched cabins which the soldiers have 

 constructed near the springs for their own convenience, 

 while hunting goats on these elevated meadow-lands. The 

 cabins stand in the midst of a fine cypress grove, and we 

 were soon familiar with the characteristics of this peculiar 

 species. A near relative of the Monterey cypress (Cypressus 

 macrocarpa), it is nevertheless of a very different aspect, 

 with its smooth, scaly bark and short, conical head. It is 

 still more distinct from Cupressus Arizonica, with which it 

 has nothing in common but the glaucescent foliage. The 

 tallest specimens of Cupressus Guadalupensis do not exceed 

 fifty feet in height, and their trunks near the ground are 

 three feet, more or less, in thickness. This tree appears 

 formerly to have occupied almost the entire plateau of the 

 northern half of the island; but now, upon the greater part 

 of this tract, only the fallen trunks, far gone in decay, re- 

 main. The cause of its destruction I cannot guess. Gua- 

 dalupe has never been inhabited except very temporarily by 

 shipwrecked or seal-hunting sailors, or fugitives from Mexi- 

 co. It is easy to conceive that fires might have devastated 

 any part, but there is no evidence that the fallen trees were 

 destroyed by flames. If they had been their decay would 

 have been less rapid, and charring would remain visible 

 upon the last relics of the wood. A cedar tree (Juniperus 

 Calif ornicay ax. osteosperma, Engelm.), which appears to have 

 covered, in former times, the south part of the island, is 

 now upon the very verge of extermination. Only ten years 

 ago Dr. Palmer observed it, "all over the middle of the 

 island * * * forming groves about fifteen feet high." 

 In this year of 1885 there were remaining, of the grove in 



